#I am currently rereading the manga but the reread is on hold for now

[abdocado]

I originally followed you for your one piece art (which is amazing by the way) but I just realized it says you like Hajime no Ippo in you bio! That was one of the first anime I ever watched so it's awesome to see another fan!

Just wanted to say that, hope you have a great day :)

Oh my gosh! A fellow hajime no ippo fan haha

I got back into drawing years ago because I got into HNI and absolutely adored all the characters! So in a way the only reason I'm drawing (again) is because of those silly boxers

I do have some old fanart from the show but I do plan on drawing more of it in the future!

So, who is your favorite character then? 😊

[thatfoxnamedfinley]

Manga I’m currently reading that I’m really into:

GANGSTA

Rereading this right now.

We begin in the slums and mainly follow the story of two men who are tied together & bound by trauma. Polar opposites but full of equal amounts of deep love & hate for one another; they can’t live without each other. There are elements of PTSD that are explored very well in different ways; the trauma of physical abuse by a parent. The trauma of drug addiction. The trauma of being a prostitute & trying to find a way out. Even the trauma of how hard it is to learn to accept love & affection from others after being hurt. There are powers in this too; people called Twilights, who are shunned and seen as disgusting, wear dog tags with their power ranking on them so they can be recognized by the public. Mafia elements.

This series will always be in my heart; this was the series that got me into reading manga several years ago.

Favorite Character: Nic (olas Brown)

WITCH HAT ATELIER

A world of magic and beautiful art; a secret exposed by a young girl who may or not have been targeted as a child to perform forbidden magic. Complex characters and EXCELLENT world building. One of the more creative magic systems I’ve ever seen implemented. Very mysterious and a lot of things are not as they appear. Story seamlessly moves between light & dark storytelling methods. Not too far in this right now but I am very intrigued; it’s a story that benefits from taking your time and reading slowly. 

Favorite Character: Olruggio

BLUE LOCK

A sports manga about football (soccer). Lots of hype moments with great characters that have big personalities. Only other sports manga besides Haikyuu I’ve ever been able to get into. The main difference is that Blue Lock highlights the ego and personal stats over teamwork and “the power of friendship”. Haven’t really seen a sports manga like this; where it’s encouraged to be selfish and make plays as an individual rather than as a team. Premise revolves around how Japan is looking for a team to lead them to victory (with a focus on predatory strikers, the position that attacks from the front lines and shoots) following the loss at the 2018 World Cup.

Favorite Character: Barou

GOLDEN KAMUY

Really took me by surprise at the blend of laugh-out-loud comedy, interesting premise and character driven story. Gold rush in the early 1900′s after the Russo-Japanese War. Our main character is trying to fulfill a promise he made to a long dead friend while trying to maintain his humanity as he bears the name that made him infamous in battle; Sugimoto the Immortal. Scars cover his entire body, evident of his will to survive. He is a very endearing character and the story really has an excellent flow. Villains feel dangerous and there’s a large cast of characters. The MC’s struggle to hold onto what makes him human while the circumstances around him force him to be anything but is fascinating to watch.

Favorite Character: Sugimoto / Asirpa / Ogata

So what are you reading?

[lastquincy]

thank you for the tag nini 💚 under the cut!

(questions bolded, answers italicized)

last song i heard:

worst is on it's way by korn, HEALTH, danny brown and meechy darko! my friend showed me a song by HEALTH earlier and before this i had no idea they existed, so i went through their discography and found this collab and immediately fell in love. i love you rap and rock you belong together

favorite color:

it varies but one of these is usually good

last watched series:

i don't really watch series, or at least i haven't lately, but i did watch lars and the real girl for the first time a few days ago! i can confidently say that is one of the most terrifying ways i have ever related to a movie, and it is both exhilarating and nauseating. definitely recommend to anyone ever, especially if you are autistic or delusional/dissociative. it's almost painfully sympathetic and i haven't seen many, if any, movies that actually care about a delusional character the way this one does.

sweet/spicy/savory:

sweet and savory kissing sloppy style. i like spice a lot too, though! it's a very close tier list. depending on my mood it's either sweet or savory at the top but i'm picky with the style of spice i like so she gets last place. sorry...

relationship status:

i dunno @determine can you help me by holding my hand and telling me you love me so i can figure out my complicated feelings culminating in a heartwarming coming of age story about aro fag love and sex in a modern society that doesnt yet understand atypical relationships starring ryan reynolds played by melly (she drives)

[jokes aside, taken 👍]

last thing i googled:

i don't save my search history on my phone browser but it was probably either something on e621 or the weather. because i am always checking the weather

current obsession:

i'm somewhat between things right now but undertale is a strong contender. replayed all the main routes recently and i feel like if i think too hard about flowey i might cause an event. honestly an event has already been caused. sorry. In 12 hours it might be walten files though

last thing i read:

for christmas i got some fan guides for earthbound and mother 3 from fangamer (thank you dad!) and looking through those was really interesting. doesn't really count as a thing i read (especially since i mostly skimmed) but that's really all i can remember. unless you want to count one of my many, many rereads of any akira himekawa zelda manga and the dark horse zelda compendium things (i keep reviewing how they categorize the timelines and examining the list of all items and their differing appearances in different games).

something i've been looking forward to:

this summer i get to spend a whole month with the love of my life and my friends! we're going to go to a concert (los campesinos!) and it will be my first time at a concert ever, we're going to anthrocon (not my first time, but my second! i feel much more prepared for the situation..) and my birthday! we'll have plenty of time to hang out and chill and do whatever and i'm just ecstatic to be back further up north and enjoy my youth. i get to eat at sheetz again!

TAG: @determine @mellyncholly if you guys want to do this! also anyone reading this (hi) you are also tagged if you want to be. everyone loves filling out forms with personal info! yay sharing!

[likegemstone]

I have been in a really good groove with creating lately, and just with like "working" in general. In the past, creating has often involved a massive and constant mental wrestling match against myself—second guessing every decision, fighting through constant discouragement, rarely if ever feeling confident in what I'm working on, etc. Just all this emotional/mental exertion on top of the regular emotional/mental exertion that goes into making art.

But lately I have felt really in sync with myself—we're dancing instead of wrestling. I've been brave enough to try out new things that I've never done before (which is REALLY hard for me, like REALLY hard), and been able to notice and accept the areas of my work that I can see need improvement without beating myself up bc they aren't "good enough" yet. It has been really nice, and has shown me that, when I can care for and take responsibility for myself properly (which I now have the skills and tools to do thanks to a lot of inner work and also therapy), I can learn, grow, and improve pretty steadily, and without all the agony of that fucking exhausting wrestling match.

However.

I made a post recently about how I want to draw Daivad getting his ass kicked (and also kicking ass), right? That is in great part due to the fact that I was, at the time, rereading Kengan Asura/Kengan Omega (which is an MMA manga) and I was Very Inspired. And I still am. I've been gathering reference and inspo ever since then. And today I ran out of Haikyuu!! to watch so I was like okay now is the time—I want to draw some sick action scenes with Daivad.

But then. Here comes the anxiety. The overwhelm. The "there's no way you can pull off some sick action scenes—you can barely place characters in a scene and make it look legit, you want to try to do multiple characters interacting in a scene in extreme and dynamic poses?? no shot. and once you try and inevitably fail then you're going to be discouraged and start beating yourself up again and you'll ruin this momentum we've got going on."

So, this post is going to be me using those tools and skills I have now to work through this. Because I know I can. I've done it before.

First skill I'm going to be using: recognizing what exactly is triggering this anxiety, and figuring out a plan to care for the Part of me that's triggered. I want to ensure I'm making my decisions from Core, not from a triggered Part, and I also want to ensure I'm caring for those vulnerable Parts!

I think the thing that is making me feel so anxious and overwhelmed is because dynamic action scenes are so far out of my comfort zone and I haven't come up with a plan for connecting the dots of my current skill to Dynamic Action Scene Skill. It's a whole big leap, and that Part of me sees aaaaalllll of those, like dozens of really tricky dots that I have not mastered yet (perspective, composition, conveying movement, dynamic poses IN perspective, and so on) and is like "!!!!! HOLD UP THAT'S TOO MUCH I CAN'T FIGURE THIS OUT ALL AT ONCE. Trying to master all that stuff will take literal years and probably good money to pay for lessons from people who know wtf they're doing!!"

So, I'll care for that Part by saying: That's true! And it's okay! I'm not going to try to get the perfect action scene down right away, because you're right. Trying to force that would absolutely wreck our confidence and be really frustrating as well. And I appreciate the reminder that biting off more than I can chew can knock me back a few steps. Small bites are best sometimes.

Next skill, now that that Part has calmed down a lot and also feels steadied: coming up with a plan. I want to draw Daivad getting his ass kicked, but don't currently have the skills to pull off a whole Dynamic Action Scene yet. So how am I going to meet that desire/feed my inspiration (Daivad getting his ass kicked) while still protecting my Parts, challenging my skills, and caring for my mental health?

One dot at a time.

I could start with just breaking down some of my favorite panels from KA. Examining how Daromeon frames his scenes, how he works with perspective, how he conveys movement, etc. But specifically I want to see Daivad getting his ass kicked—so maybe I'll start with just one pose that feels doable for my skill level, use KA as reference for the pose and put Daivad in it, and since I have gotten decent at capturing his likeness, I can challenge myself to put an extreme expression on his face and still have him be recognizable. That's totally doable—it'll take time and work and lots of effort, but it's doable! And it will bring me one step closer to Dynamic Action Scene skill level!

Alright, now I'm feeling excited and fired up and also I have an exact pose in mind and I think I already have it saved somewhere, so I am off to draw Daivad, Bloody and In Pain. Wish me luck y'all!

[outeremissary]

9 People You'd Like to Get to Know Better

Tagged by @turbulentpumpkin43. Thanks for thinking of me! I know I haven't been around much (for reasons we don't need to get into), but truly nothing summons me faster than the email notification about a tag game where I know I'm going to have to say something horribly embarrassing about myself.

Three Ships: I mean, if we're counting stuff with OCs then obviously anyone following my knows Balthazar and Tristian (and the wonderful polycule with Vio) is my number one. Aside from that, the latest volume of Witch Hat has fully converted me into an Agott/Coco true believer. I actually did like the Coco/Tarteh vibe but Agott's special brand of slowly changing rival just has me by the throat. Aside from that? Ummm. Elliot and Leo from Pandora Hearts? Does that count? I did my full reread of Pandora Hearts while afk in September and those two have had me since like 2012 or 2013 or whenever they were introduced in the English release. But now that I'm older and more mature I can better appreciate what the messy later arcs had to give, and that's the beauty of a relationship between equals corrupted by a growing imbalance no one has the strength to acknowledge and devotion so deep it tears both of their lives apart. That's awesome. 11/10, everyone read Pandora Hearts and I'm not even joking

First Ever Ship: Gamers, back in early 2012 when I was in middle school and could only see images on the computer at school because searching for anything visual online was mega bad for rural internet, a friend of mine used a science classroom computer to discover you could find non-canon images of The Legend of Zelda if you searched terms like "Link blue" and scrolled down a couple rows. I distinctly remember this as the first ever time I really understood the concept of "fan art," and more importantly as my entry into fandom as we all began to realize many of these came from the same site: a place called "DeviantArt." Some of these contained such salacious and unthinkable things as two boys holding hands and blushing, and also both of those boys were Link. I was so captivated by these mysterious images that I followed them to their Four Swords Adventures manga RP fandom source, where I am not proud to say the first "ship" I adopted as such was Vio (Violet Link for people who spent their time doing better things at thirteen) and Shadow (Shadow Link, of course). That's right, everyone! It was edgy Link selfcest yaoi between a traitor and an angsty villain all the way down!!! And you know what? When I write that I don't think my taste has changed. Except the selfcest. Mostly.

The other, more respectable first ship I remember not long after that was Ulquihime. What can I say, there's just something about the Stockholm syndrome of it all.

Last Song: No title - REOL. Narrowly missed this being edgy early Vocaloid. I've been revisiting old favorites recently.

Last Movie: I'm pretty sure it was Surf's Up. For whatever reason my friend decided we should rewatch it when I visited him a few weeks ago. Holds up better than it should, but I've rewatched it twice in little over a year and truly that is my Surf's Up limit. That trip was also when my friend forced me to watch Barbie and the D&D movie. Look at me catching up on relevant pop culture only for fucking Surf's Up to be what made this list.

Currently Reading: I'm pretty sure this came up last time, but because I haven't gotten started on a better book since then I'm unfortunately still periodically chipping at The Thousand Deaths of Ardor Benn. This book fucking sucks. Don't read it. If we could manga and stories that are actually good I recently did a Witch Hat Atelier reread after getting volume 11!!! That volume is. So painfully personal.

Currently Watching: Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and Jujutsu Kaisen season 2. JJK is with my friend for weekly hangout, but Edgerunners is a solo endeavor because it was bumming him out way too much. Good show though. Also JJK was way more of a bummer than expected in ways that caught me off guard??? I'm not getting over what happened to that girl, I really got fucking got by that scene. Jesus

Currently Consuming: Nothing. Just finished dinner, where I had a chicken sandwich and fries. I need groceries. It's dire.

Currently Craving: doing something creative, but that would require moving the giant zine pile on my chair........ this is how I'm procrastinating

I'm sorry, but I'm actually not tagging anyone on this tonight! I haven't been on enough lately to know who has or hasn't done it, and frankly I'm not ready to be back on Tumblr enough to map that out. If you're seeing this and want to do it, please go ahead and do it. Tag me like I tagged you, we are collaborators in this and I want to see what you say.

[mrgammakay]

Remember when memes used to be questionnaires instead of gifs??? I AM ANCIENTTTTTT. @imindhowwelayinjune​ has placed a curse upon my house and now I’m honor-bound to dispel it.

Last song: Burn by 2WEI & Edda Hayes

Last show: The English was the last show I watched all the way through. I’m here for a good western and gotta use that accidental Amazon Prime 30 day free trial while it’s there.

Last Movie: I honestly can’t remember. Last time I was on a plane with in-flight entertainment, I watched Jurassic World: Dominion. It was terrible. But, hey, there were dinosaurs eating people.

Currently watching: I’m making my way through Rise of Empires: Ottoman Season 2. Work is holding me back but I WILL watch ancient political corruption, thanks. If all documentaries were shot like historical dramas, they would be my dragon hoard and I’d roll in a pile of them like a cat in catnip.

Currently reading: I’ve been trying to finish Women of Troy for over a month now, but I got distracted by a strong desire for magic ninja content. I also have A River Enchanted and Babel queued up in the reading roster.

Current obsession: I will never be able to escape my preoccupation with Uchihas. At this point, they’ve haunted me for over two decades and will haunt me for decades to come. I’ve been rereading the manga since Christmas. My DnD group has listened to 45 minutes of dissertations on power scaling problems in Naruto canon. Kishimoto continues to drag me to emotional narrative peaks joined together, not by sensible plot arcs or logical character motivations, but decimated, wasteland valleys of absolute plot fuckery.

Anyway. Sasuke’s a bitch, Itachi’s a god, and Shisui is a pure tragedy. I’ll be in this hell for the rest of my life.

------

Five books I’ve enjoyed since September

Okay, I basically didn’t read in October or November but I sprinted through about 10 books in December to try to reach my reading goal for the year (unsuccessful).

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan. New favorite book of all time. It’s got all my kinks: war, ancient history, swords, horses, deep-seated loathing (self and otherwise), vague mythological magic systems, khans. Never in my life have I connected with a character in a more visceral, unwanted way. My existential crisis was full-blown. I didn’t want to identify with a eunuch on a profound level, but here we are.

Greywaren by Maggie Steifvater. I reread the whole series before going into the final book, so I can’t remember if Greywaren was my favorite. But I’ve never read a magical world similar to the nonsense that goes on in the Dreamer Trilogy. It’s real good. Ronan is also a peak character. Aggressive goth Gryffindor farmboy representation matters.

Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks by Patrick Radden Keefe. Like true crime but don’t like gory details? I don’t understand you, but this is the book you’re looking for.

Furysong by Rosaria Munda. I found the character arc resolutions a little unsatisfying in the end but overall, this is probably my top young adult fantasy series. Dragons. There’s so many dragons.

I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy. What a ride. I saw a lot of her interviews about this book before I read it, so I knew exactly what I was getting into. It’s powerful for someone to talk about their bullshit in a way that doesn’t sugar coat it. 

-----

Last line written

I wrote almost nothing this year, but somehow this question caught me when I’ve just started working on a project again. The rust on this keyboard has been corroding since 2020.

“Still alive?” He asks. Irunae looks remarkably better than Énkava feels. He’s sitting up, for one. “So you’re not completely useless, then.”

[eyes-like-obsidian]

[[10 and 16 for the munday questions, please!!]]

Munday Question!

16 What is your favorite band/music genre?

Hmm... That is so hard to explain. It's really mixed actually. I love hard rock and then sometimes I really love to listen to classical music, sometimes goth music. Though I can tell you my favorite artists that I listen frequently right now.

Hozier, The Weeknd, Lana Del Rey, The Neigbourhood, Meg Myers, etc. Its too much tbh xD

10 What is your favorite fictional character (in or out of the current fandom)?

UFF! Thats a really hard one, because I love them all so much after reading the Manga (I am still rereading the Manga constantly xD) Let's make a time stamp and a little list (It's gonna be long and I am already sorry so I will cut the post here >//<):

When I first watched the first episode I immediately fell in love with Tanjiro. The kindness, empathy and love he helds for the people around him just touched me such on a deep level, it's really hard to explain. Without sounding weird, it's probably because I see the world as him. Be kind to your surrounding, you never know what they go through even if they are mean to you (but not too much!)

Then Inosuke came (and believe me I am not saying this because you are the one who send that ask xD) I swear this pretty little piece of shit. Everytime when he laughs I laugh with him and I just genuinely enjoy watching him doing stuff.

Zenitsu and Nezuko also have a special place in my heart (did you see them? They are adorable! Yes I ship them! You can judge me xD)

The Rengoku's. All of them. I cried like for the rest of the day when I watched Mugen Train. Cried again when I read it in the manga. Cried again when I rewatched it yesterday. (I know I am hopeless... I mean why am I doing this to myself??) I don't wanna even get started why I love Kyojuro so much so I won't but I have to go into detail with Shinjuro, because this man deserves better from the fandom. I know hitting his own child (just alone a child) is unforgivable and I would smack him gladly for that, but that doesn't make him a pure villain. This man is deep broken and people don't understand that. He was a passionate father who adored his family. He was so happy when he wanted to teach them Kendo, but then he lost the love of his life (and I truly believe that he loved his Ruka dearly), then he reads in the diary of his ancestor and realizes that no matter what you do, no matter how hard you train, you will never get to that level of strength that the first breather (Yoriichi). This man was depressive and deeply broken down and made later a character development. Give him some slack please (also his man tiddies are also nice but thats another story 👀)

Then we come to my first true love. Yoriichi Tsugikuni. This man... THIS MAN! I don't know where to start and my post is already long enough and ugh. Shit I will try to make it short. This man was born with a strength that is not comparable to any other person and yet he desired only a quite life with his loved that was him denied. A man who stands true to himself and who stood humble. A man who is so strong and soft and even softer for his loved ones. Someone who truly loved and was not able to forget them as they hold them high in their hearts (we know that he never remarried as he thinks that Uta was his true love. We know how much it has hurt him to attack his own brother who's flute he was still carrying with him). I could go on and on, but I think that would be too much.

[weebswrites]

How would the demon bros react to an artist MC who secretly sketches them and they find MC’s sketchbook~?

The Demon Bros: Finding MC’s Sketchbook

Lucifer

He goes to your room to check on you and sees your sketchbook lying open on your bed

He doesn’t want to invade your privacy, but he can’t help but take a peek at what it is you’re working on

He’s seen you working hard on something for the past few days and has been curious

He steps towards your bed and looks down at the page

It’s him!

His eyes scan the page, taking in how handsomely you’ve portrayed him, sitting at his desk working

He smiles and flips the pages to see what else you’ve drawn

It’s all him ? Reading, cooking, talking, existing. You’ve captured him in every light

You walk back into your room

“Lucifer!” you gasp, rushing over and shutting the sketchbook, in denial that he saw the pages and pages of himself

“What did you see” you ask him, standing on your tiptoes to try to intimidate him

He debates whether or not to lie, but knows how strongly you value honesty and communication

“I saw a few, but, they’re all incredible, MC. You don’t have to hide them from me”

You blush, “I just didn’t know if you’d think it’s weird that I draw you so much”

He leans down and kisses you, gently, whispering “It’s not weird at all, it’s quite flattering actually” against your lips

You spend the next bit of time going through your sketchbook, showing him the sketches and explaining how he made your heart race

Mammon

You two are chilling in your room on your bed, chatting about this and that

He reaches over to your nightstand and grabs the sketchbook, “Hey, human, what’re you always drawing in here anyways” he asks innocently

“Mammon no!” you try to grab the book from his hands but he’s already opened it

He goes silent, flipping through page after page of sketches and drawings of him, some colored, some not

“Mammon…I can explain…” you whisper, face red with embarrassment

He shakes his head no and continues flipping through each page, the silence in the room making you nervous

After he’s done looking he closes the book, “Mah human~” he says lovingly, and leans over and presses a kiss to your lips

“I shoulda known you were drawing The Great Mammon, what else would you draw?” he teased, kissing you again before returning the sketchbook to your nightstand

You giggle, “Exactly, what else would be so worthy of the pages than you?”

He teases you about it from time to time when he sees you sketching, but you know that seeing page upon page of himself in your sketchbook really struck a chord in his heart (sometimes he poses for you but tries to act like it’s just how he’s naturally sitting, but you both know that’s a lie) (and he looks at you with so much love in his eyes when he knows you’re drawing him, it fills your heart with such a warm feeling)

Leviathan

He’s on his fourth hour of playing through a new game

You normally play with him, but it’s not MPG, so you’re just watching him and refilling the snack bowl for the two of you when it gets empty

One trip back you stop by your room and get your sketchbook and favorite pencil

You drop the snacks beside him and sit on his bed, beginning to sketch the back of his head and body looking at the monitor

He doesn’t notice at first, but during a scene change when the screen goes black he sees you sketching, glancing up at him from time to time

“MC, what are you drawing?” he asks

“Uhh…nothing really” you stammer, hoping he didn’t catch on to your obvious lie

He does, of course, and pauses his game to come look

You try to hide your page, but don’t stop him when he sits next to you and lifts it from your arms

“Babe…” he whispers, admiring the work you’d done in such a short time, before flipping a page back and seeing another sketch of him

“I just…you’re my everything, Levi, and sometimes I see you and I just, have to capture the moment” you explain

“These are incredible, why haven’t you shown me sooner?” he asks, flipping through page after page of your work

“I didn’t want you to be uncomfortable, thinking I was always trying to draw you

“I appreciate that,” he says, stopping on a page to admire a drawing from a few weeks ago of him reading a manga, “You have so much talent”

He showers you in compliments and after a brief kiss, goes back to his game, resuming the same position he was in earlier so you could finish your drawing

Satan

You were in the library on the couch, he was rereading a favorite book and you were sketching

You sat on either end of the couch, facing each other with your legs intertwined

You’d been working on sketching your view of this for about an hour, and were proud of how well it was going

Suddenly, Satan closes his book at you and meets your eyes as they were studying his face

“Can I ask what you’re studying my face so intently for?” he asks bluntly, never holding back any punches

And you didn’t either, “I’m…drawing us. And I want to capture your face as accurately as possible” you explain

He holds his hand out for you to hand over the sketchbook, and you do after a quick glance down to look at your work

He studies your drawing before flipping to the beginning and looking through each page, admiring each one

You watched as his eyes took in every inch of every page

“Satan?” you ask, wanting to hear his thoughts

“MC, I had no idea you had so much talent” he whispered, taking minutes on each page, sincerely admiring the time and effort you’d put into each drawing

“I hope it’s okay I draw you a lot, you’re always on my mind and I want to capture every moment we have together”

“It’s perfectly, kitten” he reassures you, a light blush crossing his face as he reached the piece you were working on currently again, scanning it before handing you back your sketchbook

“Show me your work more often, it’s beautiful”

You smile, falling even more in love with him than you thought was humanly (or demonly) possible

“I will”

Asmodeus

You’re a bit tipsy, whoops

“What are you always drawing in that sketchbook of yours, anyways” he teases, poking your shoulder

“Nothinggg” you defend yourself

“Then show me if it’s nothing” he smirks, getting off your bed and walking to your desk, flipping open your sketchbook to a random page

The random page happened to be a page with a drawing of him, sitting at his desk and applying a face cream

“Honey…is this a drawing of me?” he asks, voice soft

“Yeah” you say, getting up and walking over to him, wrapping an arm around his waist

“They’re all of you” you explain, scanning through the pages with your thumb

He takes a bit to flip through the pages slower, appreciating each drawing for a moment before moving to the next

After he’s done he closes the book and turns to you, wrapping his arms around your waist and pulling you into him, pressing a passionate kiss to your lips

“Seeing myself from your eyes…it was amazing” he whispered, pulling away, “Your art is amazing”

“Thanks, Asmo” you say, smiling and kissing him again

He absolutely makes you draw him posing now, he’ll sit in any pose he can think of, in all sorts of cute or seductive outfits, letting you draw him for hours and hours

Sometimes he’ll wear an outfit, and well, the drawing doesn’t last long lol

Beelzebub

He doesn’t want to pry at what you’re doing, but you can tell by the way his eyes linger whenever you’re drawing that he’s curious

After you get a good portion of the way done with your current drawing, you scoot next to him

(You’re in the kitchen, because duh)

“Beel, can I show you what I’ve been working on?”

“Of course, my love”

You turn the sketchbook from your chest to his eyes, handing it to him

He takes it, carefully admiring the most recent few pages

His heart is beating fast, the fact that you saw him and wanted to draw him made him so soft

“MC…” he whispers

“Beel?”

“These are so good, your talent is undeniable” he praises you

“Thank you” you reply, heart warmed by his kind words

“You…always draw me. Why?” he asks

“You always stick out to me, love. You’re handsome and strong and the love of my life. Sometimes I get hit with a wave of appreciation for you and want to capture the moment” you explain

He smiles, blushing more before leaning in and kissing you

After a few kisses you two pull away, resting your foreheads together

“I love you, Beel”

“I love you too, MC”

Belphegor

You keep it Very on the down low when you’re drawing him

You know he doesn’t like attention on him, even when it’s from you, and you don’t want to make him uncomfortable

One day he catches you

The two of you are in his room, he’s reading something on his phone and you’re sketching

You always told him it was for your art class, which was sometimes true, at least

“MC, can I see what you’re working on” he asks

You hesitate for a moment, “Belphie, I’m…I’m drawing you” you confess, lowering your head a bit

He just looks at you, “Oh…”

“If it makes you uncomfortable I’ll stop, it’s just sometimes you look so peaceful I want to capture it forever” you ramble

“Hey, MC, it’s okay. I trust you” he says, holding out his hand for you to give him the sketchbook

You do so, and study his face intently as he flips through the pages

He stops at one, and you glance to see which one it is

It’s one from a few weeks ago, he was mid-nap, hair messy and face perfectly calm

“You’re so talented” he commented, “this one in particular, the level of detail is impressive”

“Thanks” you say, letting out a sigh of relief and laughing a bit

“You should show me more often, I’d love to see more of your work. Even if it’s just drawings of me” he teases lightly

You smile, nodding, “Yeah, I will”

--------------------

A/N: wow I’m not doing too hot on posting every day am I lol, but I’ve gotten some really fun requests (like this one !! thank u anon I loved writing this so much) and they’re keeping me motivated

[origami10]

Current:

Book (English, print): concurrently reading Ascendance of a Bookworm with the Japanese; The Color of Magic (had to return to the library in the middle); Green Rider

eBook (English): Fifty Shades of Grey (picking up where I left off). None right now

Book (Japanese, print): RPG; SAO Progressive #1; No.6 vol. 1 [on hold]

eBook (Japanese) (on hold) Average Abilities, vol. 1, ch. 6; Ascendance of a Bookworm, finished ch. 2?

Audiobook (English): White Fragility (on hold)

Audiobook (Japanese): やっぱり俺の青春ラブコメは間違っている 2/8 Need to figure out if my Audible trial period ended on its own

Podcast: TMA ep. 187 (on hold)

TV Show (English): Umbrella Academy (on hold)

Avatar the Last Airbender, finally finished S1!

The Indian Doctor (it's on TV) finished S3/caught up! sometimes Death in Paradise (on hold)

Just finished Ted Lasso (both seasons), it was so good!!!

Oh Squid Game lol: ep 6

Anime: (I have discovered I am unable to watch things sequentially, thus the mess this is now)

To Your Eternity, finished ep. 9

(on hold) Mononoke: finished ep. 5

(on hold) Jujutsu Kaisen: ep. 13...?

Something something Daisuke Balance Unlimited, ep. 6

Ms. Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid, finished S1 & OVA

Gakuen Babysitters, finished ep. 6 (on hold)

Demon Slayer/Kimetsu no Yaiba, finished ep. 12

Asobi Asobase, ep. 6

various first episodes (Asobi Asobase, Brand New Animal, K-On, Toilet-Bound Hanako-Kun, Seven Deadly Sins, Gokushufudou, Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid, Danganronpa, Legend of Korra, Miraculous Ladybug, Nichijou, Tokyo Ghoul, Flowering Heart, PreCure, Kaichou wa Maid-sama, Attack on Titan, Free!, Sailor Moon+) continuing episodes (Squid Girl), Stein’s Gate, Takt op.Destiny, Blue Period, Kakegurui, FMA, Parasyte, Bleach, Jojo Stone Ocean, High Rise Invasion, Evangelion, Jujutsu Kaisen

Manga:

(English, print) Akatsuki no Yona: vol. 23 [on hold]

(Japanese, digital) 悪の教典 ch. 3

HOW HAVE I NOT HAD (JAPANESE, PRINT) ON HERE, IT’S LIKE THE MOST IMPORTANT CATEGORY: uhh either Karneval or Ouran or Deadman Wonderland hmm help

(Viz app, phone) i tell c completed ;o; ; Undead Unluck ch. 23?; Blue Exorcist (a few chapters behind); Kaiju No. 8 ch. 42?; Tegami Bachi (ch. 8), Spy X Family uh accidentally caught up; Sho wa Shoten ch. 3; Doron doron?

(Viz app, tablet) BnHA, ch. 2XX (on hold)

(English, digital) Dorohedoro (to start); accessed

Turkish: Kocan Kadar Konuş (on hold)

Mandarin (on hold): Meteor Garden (ep. ...?)

(re)read: Ajin vol. 1 (Japanese) (on hold T-T) [note to self: you owe it to YOURSELF to reread!!]

Projects:

ANNOUNCED! Preorders open!

Definitely not Gargantia: 15/180

Blue Exorcist Big Bang: partner matched! Plot identified. Way overdue ><

Set up LLC: email about incubator periods; contact law clinic

Ajin Secret Santa: Waiting on one more!

[yuisagi]

70(?) percent complete !!

I think I know what exactly I want to do with this account.

I mean, I had a basic idea when I created it like almost 2 years ago, but noticeably, due to some circumstances, I didn't go through with them. Now, with newly gained free time, new experiences, and stories to tell, I want to give it a try again. Now, to what I will post (and for me to remember);

(Probably) Long-ish posts, going through various phases I might have in a week or a day, without explicitly exposing information, but still analyzing why and what might've caused it. This would probably be for venting or telling stories that I find might be worth sharing.

Moods, random thoughts. Like as if this is Twitter.

Compilation posts with songs I currently like and loop, or newfound gems.

I want my Tumblr to be a neutral/safe space -for me to talk. I have this weird inhibition to not share things, online it's even worse. It's healthy to some degree, but it has gotten to a point where it makes me feel bad a lot. I want to let myself have the freedom to share what's on my mind. Neutrally, subjectively, jokingly, dramatically, do I have to describe it further? But I also want to read other people's experiences and thoughts. I must say, thinking that other people will read what I write eventually, kind of makes me uncomfortable. But it's nothing bad. I'm not doing anything bad. I don't have to feel this way towards this, - and I want to better it. I want to connect. I want to make new friends and share. I don't have to, honestly, I am writing this with the thought in my mind that nobody will interact with my blog and I will just write for myself, which is a very comforting thought, but this is still the internet. Somehow somewhen someone will come across this, and read it. Hello. Tumblr, with all its history and absurdity, is still my favorite social media platform, I think. It just has that particular feeling to it and the real freedom to stand out and do your thing. This is why I'm choosing to be here, wanting to be a part of this. Wanting this to be something I do when I feel like it, something I can look back and reread whenever I feel like it. This might sound a bit cheesy but, (honestly, the whole post might be) I kind of want this to be something I can look back on when I am older. „All I did archive was holding a diary on the internet", might be something quite depressing to say and to look back on, but it's something. And I think older me would like to read what younger/current me has to say. I don't want to force myself to post regularly. - I would like when. I do, having some kind of routine would be fun and interesting, but I don't want this to become something I feel like having to do. So I might not be active. I will probably have different phases. I want to use the Tumblr website feature of that, to have a rough update on how active I am and what I like/currently am doing.

About reblogs;

I will still reblog like I was before, with well just the difference that I actually post stuff in between ! I might slow down a bit with it, but I will still reblog things I find highly share-worthy/inspirational, goofy things, thinks I can relate to and Manga/Visual Novel pictures.

After being on this platform for years, I'm still figuring things out, like hashtags as an example. I'm not quite sure what, and how to use them, but I will ultimately. I would appreciate some tips and recommendations in my ask box though- :D

[brightblueinky]

Pardon me for the intrusion, but you're the only person I found who's still into CC and I have to ask: does the romantic aspect of Chrono's and Rosette's relationship seem lacking to you? Like I can see when Rosette starts to view him as a love interest (chapter 28), but I can't see when Chrono starts to view her as one. To me it feels like he only had an interested in Mary, and Rosette is just his very beloved friend; the kiss felt too sudden. I'm sorry, I just need a second opinion on this.

Okay I am so sorry I didn’t respond to this until now, I’ve mostly been using tumblr on my phone and using it to check a few blogs and occasionally the CC tag, and apparently tumblr doesn’t notify for asks on the mobile app? Or I’m not seeing it? Something. I have no idea how long you’ve been waiting for a response on this, so I’m really sorry! I hope you find this!

I think I need a reread of the manga at this point--a lot of the stuff I’m writing these days is going off of head canon which might not be 100% accurate anymore. So I’m just going to write this off the cuff. Gonna be a bit stream of consciousness! So this is definitely not a definitive opinion or even one I’ll always stand by, just how I personally feel in this particular moment.

So off the top of my head...

I think we see less things from Chrono’s point of view than from Rosette’s, which is part of what makes this tricky. This isn’t ALWAYS the case obviously (we see his sort of...PTSD dream flashback after Rizelle’s death, the flashback in volume 6 is basically from Chrono’s viewpoint since it’s mostly his memories, etc), but since one of the way the plot moves forward is the mystery of what happened in Chrono’s past usually the viewpoint is more centered around Rosette. I actually always assumed that Rosette was the only character that Moriyama would consider the protagonist until I saw that on a dust jacket for one of the books he said that BOTH Chrono and Rosette are (can’t remember which book, sorry! it was a fan translation).

Thinking about it, I think we see Chrono start to realize he has romantic feelings at the end of volume 6. I think that’s the first time he really, truly comes to accept his contract with Rosette as a good thing instead of just...the lesser of two evils, I guess? It’s when he goes “oh, yeah, I made the contract because otherwise she would’ve run off to solve the problem on her own, and I didn’t want to leave her alone.” I think that’s when he starts to really see Rosette as someone that’s on the same level of emotional maturity as him, too--earlier he occasionally teases her for being immature, but I think when Rosette tells him that she wants to share his pain, and Mary’s, that he sees how emotionally strong she is as a person and really respects that. Not that he didn’t see her as strong BEFORE, buuut like...he’d been so hesitant to share his past with Rosette until right then, and her response, I think, makes him realize how helpful having her support really is to him.

This isn’t really the same situation and is definitely my own personal reaction, but as I write this it makes me think of when I was dating my husband. I was initially terrified he was going to break up with me because I was bisexual--we both came from conservative Christian backgrounds and were homeschooled, and in the past he expressed homophobic sentiments--but I felt like I HAD to tell him because I couldn’t see myself in a long term relationship with someone I couldn’t be 100% honest with. His reaction when I told him was to immediately tell me he trusted me and cared about me, start to reconsider what he’d been raised to feel immediately, and he’s become one of my biggest advocates as I’ve come out to friends and family. Coming out to him was one of the best things I’ve ever done, but it was terrifying until I did. I can see Chrono having similar fears talking about his past with Rosette, and having a similar sense of relief and healing as soon as he realized how much Rosette is in his corner and how helpful having someone he can be open with actually is.

In the next chapter, Rosette holds Chrono’s hands to comfort him while they briefly talk about their current situation (Chrono being held in, uh, demon jail? and Rosette being taken off of her mission to find Joshua), then they both blush and get flustered when they realize what they’re doing. They babble small talk afterward while inner dialogue repeats Rosette’s promise to share Chrono’s pain, and Mary’s too. And then RIGHT AFTER is when Remington walks in and takes them to Aion’s old house on the beach so...that’s about it.

So I think the manga does show that, either right after he’s pulled out of his coma by Rosette or sometime in the aftermath, Chrono is starting to acknowledge that his feelings for Rosette might be more romantic. But it is VERY brief, because literally everything after that is two volumes of the big finale, taking place entirely over no more than 24 hours. Everything after that is rushing to tie up as many loose ends as possible--Fiore being Satella’s sister, saving Joshua, Joshua beginning to grapple with the gravity of what he’s done and been a part of and what’s been done to him, Aion and Chrono’s confrontation, the Order and the Sinner’s confrontation, Rosette’s near death experience, Aion’s motivations revealed, Chrono and Aion’s true relationship revealed, Azmaria finally coming into her own in terms of taking ownership of her powers, the culmination of Aion’s plans (and near-Apocalypse caused by it), the true nature of demons, the deaths of most of the Sinners, Shader’s defection, Joshua and Fiore’s relationship being somewhat resolved, Rosette and Chrono’s relationship being somewhat resolved...like holy shit there is SO. MUCH. THERE.

On top of that, I’ve got the Japanese reprints and while I can read basically no Japanese (HUGE GRAIN OF SALT INCOMING), I’ve pointed Google Translate at some of the omakes and from what I can tell, Moriyama talks in the omake in...volume 6, I think, that he basically had a whole other volume’s worth of story for the flashback that had to be cut! If I’m understanding it right, it’s like...from Remington’s perspective, and involves some Native American tribe or reservation that had connections to the Sinners, and the woman in charge of the orphanage Joshua and Rosette grew up in was a child living in a town nearby....

Basically, from what I can tell? Moriyama had a LOOOOOOOOT of background stuff he wanted to go into in the back half of Chrono Crusade that he wasn’t able to do for time reasons. I’m not sure if his editor gave him a deadline, or he realized it would be too meandering, or what exactly happened, but...have you ever heard the “iceberg” theory of writing? Basically, flesh out as much of the backstory as you can--know everything about the town your story is set in, the family of your protag and their relationships with them, what they eat for breakfast, just...every little minutia you can possibly think of, but most of that won’t get into your story. The audience will only see the tip of the iceberg, but knowing so much background about your setting and characters will help it feel more alive and inform your decisions as you write.

I think Moriyama had a fucking huge iceberg, basically, and I think he actually wanted to show more of that, but...couldn’t. So we get little pieces of art that reference this entire backstory for Satella we never see, and Aion, etc....that gets small nods but doesn’t make it into the manga.

And I think there’s a lot of things Moriyama wanted to give time to breathe in the manga but due to space limitations, couldn’t. So that’s why the second half of the manga literally takes place from Thanksgiving to sunrise on Christmas Day and is...the entire second half of the manga. He’s rushing to get in as much as possible while still letting the story flow as a story and sometimes...it’s not perfect.

So....I think unfortunately, yeah, one of the casualties of that is that we don’t get a huuuuuge amount of Chrono’s side of the relationship, because most of the moments that really shows that they’re heading in that direction is from Rosette’s POV. Other than the scene I already mentioned, I think you could argue that Chrono’s reaction to “the place that Chrono can go back to was decided 4 years ago!” might also be the first moment he starts to consider how important Rosette is to him, but that doesn’t HAVE to be romantic...Chrono’s reaction to her death (and then realizing there’s a chance to revive her) again emphasizes how important she is to him, but it doesn’t HAVE to be romantic...the kiss at the end is the only thing that really 100% says “Yes, this is romantic and not platonic” on his part. And...yeah. It feels a bit sudden. There’s some underlying hints before that but...I mean, I know about them because I’m obsessive about character growth and narrowed in on it in subsequent rereads, I’m not sure if it came through right away on my first read of the manga, and I even knew going into it that they were at least meant to be teased as a ship, so, yeah.

Also I briefly want to admit that as I’ve gotten older, the age gap bothers me a little more. Not enough for me to abandon the ship, just, you know, it’s something I acknowledge will turn some people off. I think Chrono, maturity-wise, is meant to be seen as...about 20. I think Moriyama mentions in one of the early omakes that that’s what he looks like in his unsealed form, we know that when he leaves Pandaemonium it’s right after his coming of age ceremony so he’s about what a demon would consider to be 18 in terms of emotional (and physical?) maturity, and especially since he’s been sleeping for 50 years since that period of his life he doesn’t have the experience that his age really indicates (which Aion blantantly points out near the end). So I’m not THAT bothered by it because I don’t think that Rosette and Chrono are actually that inequal in terms of emotional maturity but it’s still...there, and...I mean he met her when she was 12...so...yeah that’s a bit weird!! 

I’ve just gotten to where I shrug my shoulders and go “look, every ship in Chrono Crusade has something problematic about it, if you’re going to be a fan of Chrono Crusade you’re probably going to have to grapple with the fact that it’s messy and human and nobody is 100% good or bad in the manga, and that’s part of what I like about it, so, that’s cool, but it’s probably not for everyone.” It’s actually one reason why I’m kinda OK with CC not being as popular as some of its contemporaries because...some of the anti-shipper stuff I’ve seen online...oh boy.

So...I guess in conclusion, I think there’s stuff there in the manga to build up the relationship a little bit, but a lot of it is from Rosette’s POV and most of it is kind of subtle. I wouldn’t be surprised if Moriyama had wanted to flesh it out more obviously in the manga but the second half is stuffed full of wrapping up character arcs and questions and loose ends so it just didn’t really have the time to get as much focus. I really like the ship a lot, but a lot of it comes from analysis of the characters and how they relate to each other rather than it just being...canon. I’m okay with that, I’m the sort of person that will ship characters that never even meet just because I think the dynamic might be cool, but...I’m not surprised that not everyone would be into it, either.

And now I kinda want to make...a series of posts analyising the different relationships that are...either canon or teased in canon, see how much they’re built up, etc. Because this post makes me think a lot about Joshua/Azmaria and how confused I was by them apparently being married in the epilogue on my first read, and only seeing the hints Moriyama hinted about them possibly being a couple in the manga on subsequent rereads (and even then HO BOY it’s so subtle it makes Chrono and Rosette look really in your face aaaaaa). BUT I HAVE RAMBLED ENOUGH FOR THIS POST and, again, I need a reread. Maybe soon....!!!!

[linkspooky]

One Bad Day - League of Villains

can you explain the meaning of all it takes is one bad day meaning my hero academia? I saw it used with twice but i thought that it might appy to some of the villians we saw in the manga. 

In the most recent arc “My Villain Academia” the story flipped to the villain’s side rather than the heroes and we saw the world through their eyes. In that same arc, Hori made several allusions to The Killing Joke by Alan Moore, a comic that explores a darker take on the relationship between batman and the joker and one potential take on the Joker’s Character. It just like My Villain Academia is a story told mainly through the villain’s eyes rather than the hero’s, and it’s all about the narrative a villain tells himself. 

What was Hori’s purpose in referencing the killing joke? Did he take inspiration from the story? Is he just a nerd making a comic book reference? Did he believes the themes espoused in the Killing Joke to be true? Let’s take a look under the cut. 

1. The Killing Joke

The most logical place to start is with the material Horikoshi is referencing himself. I read the Killing Joke several years ago, and reread it for the purpose of this meta. The funny thing about the killing joke (har har) as it’s one of those stories that gets misinterpreted a lot by fans. 

It’s actually a pet peeve of mine when people blame the original work itself, like saying it’s Fight Club’s fault that people misread it. The common misreading of the text is that Joker is right, that he’s actually this really deep person that sees through the lies of society. Even when the entire point of the story is that Joker is wrong, the characters even say this out loud as direct  dialogue. This story is the exact opposite of subtle, it’s very in your face with it’s themes, almost too loud.

 People confuse the Joker’s own personal narrative, that he sees through these things and is therefore deeper and more aware than anybody else, with the framing of the story that frames Joker as petty and shallow. But, you could have Joker wear a t-shirt that says “I am wrong and a hypocrite” the entire work and people would still misread it. 

The point of this preamble being, I don’t think Hori misinterpreted the killing Joke. I do not think his reading of the story is so shallow he referenced it because the joker is a cool villain who says cool things. I hope that will show as I continue, that there is a lot of thought put into these connections. Even if it’s not a direct adaptation of the themes of the killing work the two separate works make for a really interesting comparison. 

Joker says many things about the world., but the killing Joke isn’t about the world at all, nor does Joker really care about the world. The Killing Joke is not a comment on society, it’s a character study, primarily about the relationship between Batman and the Joker. It starts and ends with the titular killing joke. 

See, there were these two guys in a lunatic asylum, and one night, one night they decide they don’t like living in the asylum anymore. They decide they’re going to escape. So, like, they get up on the roof and there, just across this narrow gap, they see the rooftops of the town stretching away in the moonlight, stretching away to freedom. Now, the first guy, he jumps right across with no problem but his friend, his friend daredn’t make the leap, y’see. Y’see he’s afraid of falling. So then the first guy has an idea. He says “Hey, I have my flashlight with me. I’ll shine it across the gape between the buildings. You can walk along the beam and join me.” But the second guy just shakes his head. He suh-says. He says “wh-what do you think I am, crazy? You’d turn it off when I was halfway across.” 

The Joker's joke, which is an analogy of how hopeless it is for one insane man to try saving another insane man. It's so sadly relevant, Batman can't help but join the Monster in bitter laughter. The entire story is a character study of the foiling between Batman and the Joker, and how both of their actions, becoming a hero, becoming a villain, is a response to meaningless tragedy in their lives. Yet, even if Batman recognizes that they’re both victims in a way he can’t save joker, because it’s impossible for one insane man to save another. 

That is the main theme, of the Killing Joke. In a way it’s a failure of empathy, because batman’s methods won’t save the joker, punching him in the face won’t fix him. That is also what I believe Horikoshi disagrees with.

The main conflict of the Killing Joke is that the Joker is trying to make a point. That he’s not that different from everybody else, that anyobdy when exposed to the meaningless tragedy of the world would go insane. That it’s the right response and everybody else, clinging to to society, and it’s made up rules are the ones who are really man. 

It’s basically what is called moral nihilism. 

Moral nihilism is the meta-ethical view that ethical claims are generall false. It holds that there are no objective moral facts, or true propositions - that nothing is morally good, bad, right, wrong, because there are no moral truths. 

Basically, because morals are made up ideas by human beings therefore morals cannot exist. The thing is while it insists there is no value to the things we believe are proper and right about the world, it’s not Nihilism or not in the nietzschian sense of the word. 

See, the thing is Joker is right that all of these institutions are meaningless, that they’re not as set in stone as humans would like to pretend they are, that the earth under your feet could fall out under you at any time. 

But that realization is not necessarily something that leads to evil, or even madness. Like, nihilism is very subversive of power structures. People use the idea of meaning, they use ideas, they use the way the world currently is as unfair as it is to insist that the world has always been that way, to keep in power. Therefore, rejecting what you are told by existing power structures and finding their words meaningless and thinking critically instead is something that could lead into something better. The formation of new ideas inevitably involves the rejection of old ones as meaningless. 

However, the joker isn’t interested in any of that. Nothing he says is subversive of power structures at all. He doesn’t care about the injustice of the world, or the way power structures let people like him fall through the cracks. In fact, Joker recreates the same power structures he is trying so hard to subvert and laugh at. 

Joker’s entire (possible?) backstory is that he was a victim of poverty that the world didn’t really care about, was utterly indifferent to, and the realization of the world’s indifference to him is what drove him mad in the end. However, the thing about the Joker is, he sucks at telling jokes. His attempted parody or satire just ends up recreating the same ideas of the society he is trying so hard to say that he’s above. 

In his backstory, the Joker makes a pretty misogynist joke. While a victim of poverty himself, he looks down on women victims of poverty who sell their own bodies and try to live just like he is. Joker’s problem isn’t society itself, it’s that he’s the one being stepped on, and not the one stepping on others because he thinks it should be the other way around. A guy like him should have never ended up society’s victim, society’s punchline. 

Which is why he insists that he’s normal. He’s the same as everybody else. And in a way he’s right, Joker reflects the attitudes of society, he’s sexist, he looks down at the poor, it’s implied he takes his feelings of inferiority out on his wife.  He’s normal for all of those reasons, not because it would be normal to go insane. 

Also, this is just a side tangent but there’s a lot of philosophy on whether normal people are good or bad which is too lengthy to get into, but whether people are born good or bad by default, normal people will carry within them the ideas society raised them in. 

“You must stop your fooling around with women. You’ve gone far enough. Society won’t stand for more.”  What, I wondered, did he mean by “Society?” The plural of human beings? 

No longer Human, Osamu Dazai. 

Society is the plural of human beings. Joker is a part of the same society, a reflection of the same society, a response to it, just like any other person is, and in that way he’s normal and not as outside of society as he believes himself to be. 

The work then goes on to make the point that while this may be our society, there are also people who try to be better even in situations like these. Gordon the entire time, tells Batman it’s wrong even if Joker is a bad person who murders people, to beat him up because police brutality is wrong. 

So we finally reach the scene which Hori is quoting. Joker’s speech to Batman, the grand point that he is trying to prove. That everybody is the same as he is, they just haven’t realized it yet. That anybody would have gone mad being put through what he was put through, the revelation that everything was meaningless. 

However, once again Joker doesn’t actually care whether society is meaningless or not. In fact, his actions are the opposite of NIhilism. He is trying to make a point. A point, as in, the opposite of meaninglessness. He thinks there are ideas that are correct, that there’s such a thing as being right about this world. 

Which is why we see is his slow breakdown amidst his own monologue. What he really wants is to prove to someone else his perspective is correct. So that he can finally feel justified in it, and maybe because batman isn’t responding he has to pause a minute and consider that he’s wrong?

What Joker fears is true meaninglessness. So everything he does isn’t reveling in meaninglessness like he supposes, it’s the opposite of it. He’s trying to create a narrative to life, he’s trying to give it themes, he wants to teach a lesson. Joker’s views are just a reflection of the society that created him. Joker thinks everybody else is wrong, but the idea that he himself might be wrong genuinely breaks him. 

Which is why Batman’s line here is so important. Because I’ve heard it before. What Joker says is no different from society. He carries the same attitudes. Society isn’t just some idea floating out there, it’s made up of human beings, people like the Joker. 

So, the work of the Killing Joke itself is subversive to the idea that one bad day is all it takes to turn anyone into a villain. However, at the same time the Killing Joke is not trying to make a point about society, or insanity, or victimhood and trauma or anything like that. All of those ideas present in the work, but they are basically just window dressing because the central part of the story is a character study between Joker and Batman, two people who let their entire lives be ruined by one bad day. 

However, at the same time Killing Joke is heavily flawed. Just like the joker is misogynist, etc. etc, the work itself is rife with the nineties it was made in. On that front it’s much more a product of its time than ahead of its time in any signficiant way. Like, there’s the obvious fridging of Barbara Gordon, but also as I said the point they are trying to make isn’t reflective of mental illness or trauma or anything like that. The joker went mad because he was a bad person to begin with. 

See the thing is I also believe that mentally ill people are perfectly capable of being bad people at the same time. There’s nuance there. No Longer Human, by Osamu Dazai is an example of this. The main character isn’t a bad person because they are mentally ill. The fact that they are a victim of trauma never goes away throughout the book. Yet at the same time, you see the person just uses other people as things for them to cope with, they could care less about the feelings of others, they see no one else as an individual. The way they cope with their mental illness when they are given access to healthier alternatives, is what makes them a bad person. 

While yes that is also a part of the Joker’s character, he’s always been double sided as a bully, as someone who is looking for an excuse to exploit others not really to make any kind of point. Which is why the ideas of mental illness and victimhood and whether society is at fault for creating people like this by the act of letting people fall through the cracks isn’t really suited to a character like the joker. This is something Alan Moore himself admits. 

I’ve never really liked my story in The Killing Joke. I think it put far too much melodramatic weight upon a character that was never designed to carry it. It was too nasty, it was too physically violent. There were some good things about it, but in terms of my writing, it’s not one of me favorite pieces.

“Alan Moore”

There are a lot of ideas about society brought up in the Killing Joke, but none of them are substantial, and none of them really matter because the work itself is not trying to develop them. 

However, the ideas themselves are still good which is why I like to think Hori’s work in My Hero Academia, his insistence that one bad day is what created people like Shigaraki, Twice, and Redestro is not a misinterpretation of Alan Moore’s message but in fact an interesting response. 

2. Shigaraki’s Bad Day 

There are a lot of connections between Shigaraki, the character and the Joker for instance, it’s pointed out right a way in the same sense as the Joker is throughout the entire Killing Joke comic, that he does not really mean what he says and he isn’t actually trying to prove any kind of point through his actions. 

However, Horikoshi’s writing and humanization of Shigaraki is really different and takes a different direction than the Joker. Here let’s talk about good victim bad victim again. 

The reason good victim bad victim is bad, because it basically tries to strip away victimhood of characters in order to render them in black and white ways. It gives the implication that reacting certain ways to trauma makes you a bad person. The feelings of the victim are entirely stripped away and they’re stopped from being seen as a human being, because other people want to fit them into a simpler black and white narrative.  Nuance is the best way to approach these scenes. So, let’s look at this scene with what we now know. Shigaraki is a victim of abuse. Not only that but he became a punching bag for his father, directly because All Might’s Master abandoned his father to raise All Might Instead. He was raised in domestic violence, and then adopted by a violent person and molded into becoming more violent raised with no stability, no home and constantly exposed to danger that would threaten his life.

So, yes Shigaraki’s words might be nonsense but the feelings behind them are still real. This is what All Might’s Mistake is, he could not care any less about the feelings that the person he is fighting has, and he just sees them as someone to punch in the face. This is also something that bites him later when he realizes that Shigaraki actually was someone he was connected to. 

Of course All Might is trying to save a bunch of kids, does he really have time to listen to the feelings of somebody threatening to kill kids? Who knows. That’s the thing about reality, it is mesy and indefinite, there are more important questions to ask then whether victims are good or bad. You could also say at the same time that All Might is completely oblivious to the feelings of victims of abuse. That he still fails to see what kind of person Endeavor is, and insists he has good things to teach people, because Endeavor is a part of the same sytem that heroes is. 

Anyway, the point of that tangent was to establish a good aspect of Hori’s writing, characters are people first. Shigaraki is a victim first before the question of whether he is a good person or a bad person is even asked. 

Shigaraki is also, someone like the joker thinks he seees above society because he sees it from an outsider’s perspective. He views other people as clinging onto meaningless ideals and unable to see or think for themselves, because they’re too concerned with the illusion of safety. 

Shigaraki also shares the same relationship with Deku that the joker does with Batman. Even though they do not know or understand each other, the two of them are set up as mortal enemies and keep fighting each other because their masters pushed them into this fight. Deku even denounces Shigaraki the same way that Batman does the Joker. 

Shigaraki and the joker both experience a moment where they snap. Almost as if their entire lives have been defined by one bad day, where a lot of it amounted to coincidence. Joker loses his whole family in one day and falls in the chemical tank, Tenko’s quirk activates after a particularly bad day of abuse in his abusive household and his family is caught up in an accident, and then when his father attacks him he tries to defend himself. 

Here is the primary difference though. With Joker there’s the idea written that Joker was like that all along, that he wanted to hurt people and take out his shitty life on others, and that his madness just revealed feelings that were already there. This mostly works in the case of the joker because he’s a bully, a bad person, that’s who he’s always been. 

But, Shigaraki is 1) five years old, and 2) we see the kind of person Shigaraki is before trauma. 

He’s a kid who is in fact, victimized by the patriarchical ideas of society. Unlike the joker who believed he deserved more, not only was Tenko literally just a kid trying to be himself and follow his own dream who was abused by patriarchical authority figure in his own house, but Tenko even as a victim still cared about the feelings of other people, fellow people who were being excluded like him and he went out of his way to look out for them. 

There are absolutely no hints that Tenko was simply a bad person all along, and that he was looking for the excuse to simply act on his impulses to hurt other people and destroy things. In fact this idea itself appears in story as a narrative that All for One feeds him in order to manipulate. The Joker’s ideas appear in the story, but the one that uses them, the one that’s just a bully taking advantage of weaker people is All for One, not Shigaraki. 

Shigaraki is deliberately raised not to have empathy for others, to only act on his own impulsive feelings to destroy, to be impulsive, to act to hurt whoever he wants, whenever he wants. 

Now, I don’t know if there are truly good or evil people in this world. Good and evil might not even be real, but, at the same time jerks are real, and they’re out there in the world being jerks. For the sake of simplicity let’s just define a jerk as somebody who does not care about the feelings of other people in the least, especially when it comes secondary to their own feelings. Shigaraki does not fit that criteria. 

Shigaraki listens to the people around him, he treats them with care. Even though Shigaraki suffered one bad day, and then several bad days after that, the part of Shigaraki that All for One tried so hard to destroy where he actually wants to reach out and connect to others and stand up for them is still there. 

So, in a way Horikoshi is using Shigaraki for a much more empathic take of one bad day, which sort of validates both sides of the argument. Yes, someone’s entire life can be ruined by one day and they can fall through the cracks that easily and the society that was supposed to take care of them won’t. It’s a stance that acknowledges that villains are made, and trauma exists and will always affect people whether they are good or bad people. 

However, at the same time that does not necessarily mean the person you are will be gone forever. One bad day cannot destroy you. The Joker’s view is pessimistic because he believes there’s no hope for someone like him, that both he and batman are completely broken and will have their lifes defined by their one bad day their entire life. Whereas, not only are the good parts fo Shigaraki still in there, but he also is someone slowly recovering from his trauma when placed in a much healthier environment. The Shigaraki at the beginning of the manga, and the Shigaraki we know now are different, because Shigaraki does not want to be stuck in one bad day his whole life, he’s trying desperately to become his own person outside of his trauma. 

In the end, one bad day can in fact ruin your entire life. Which is why the message of the Killing Joke ends up coming off as a little ableist, by saying that if you were a good person you would not have let it ruin you. It’s kind of like saying that Dabi is a bad person because he chose to be a villain in response to Endeavor’s abuse, even though Shouto was abused and chose to become a hero. Like, that’s a pointless argument to make, and holds Dabi accountable for his own abuse instead of holding Endeavor accountable for the people he abused. 

Shigaraki isn’t the joker, because Shigaraki is a lot more human than the joker as a character. 

2. Twice’s Bad Day

The other fundamental difference between the Joker and The League of VIllains is that the Joker really is not trying to make any kind of anti-establishment point, nor does he really care about the society around him, whereas the League of Villains definitely does care. The Killing Joke isn’t actually about society, but My Hero Academia, the central conflict of the story is about the society the story takes place in, a society that basically manufactures it’s own villains. 

Twice, just like the joker, and just like Shigaraki is someone who is driven insane by one bad day. Specifically because society as a whole neglected him and let him fall through the cracks. He’s also like the joker, someone who while at the same time as being insane, genuinely is able to observe the world around him from an outsider’s viewpoint and pick up on things. He tends to be more aware than the other characters, even while babbling like he’s just comedic relief. 

However, Twice’s views are also in direct contrast with the Joker’s. Twice himself believes that it’s fine that normal people are able to enjoy their normal everyday lives, and that people exist in this society who have no problem fitting in at all. 

Whereas, the joker loathes normal people and anyobdy else who can fit into society in a way that he cannot. He dismisses them all as idiots and laughs at them. That’s because, as a character Twice is far more self aware, unlike the Joker who is in denial of his want for people to understand him that’s exactly what Twice wants and admits to wanting. He knows his views are outside of normal society, so instead of trying to prove that he’s right, Twice seeks out people who are like him. 

He also knows that society will not try to save or sympathize with a person like his. The thing is the things Twice is saying aren’t grandiose claims to the true meaning of the world or seeing through everything, instead they’re much more grounded observations that are true because My Hero Academia is trying to prove a society that has failed people like Twice. 

Twice’s story even mirrors the joker in several ways. He is basically the same, a guy down on his luck, dealing with poverty who eventually resorts to crime when all of his other options fall through. 

Let us count the actual societal injustices that are present in Twice’s Backstory. Twice obeyed the law, and the person he hit did not. However, because the person he hit was a rich person and Twice was not, Twice was the one who was punished instead. Almost as if laws that supposedly protect everybody favor rich people and people with power already. 

The foster system left Twice alone when his parents died from a villain attack. 

Not only is Jin given a permanent record which affects all of his future employment because society treats felons like they are not people, but rather a lower class, but he also was fired from his job because someone abused the power they had in society to carry out a personal grudge against Twice. That person got away scott free and Twice lost his entire livelihood. 

Twice retaliates and he turns to crime in order to survive, and yes there were better ways that Twice could have responded, but the only reason that Twice was put into the situation in the first place was several abuses of power in society directed towards him. People like to insist over and over again that victims should always just remain good people forever, without lashing out, or hurting others in order to survive but then not say how they are supposed to survive in those situations. 

Twice however, takes full responsibility for his actions and realizes that his lashing out, his decision to live selfishly and steal and try to live the good life abusing his quirk was not what he wanted at all. His actions result directly in his bad day. 

However, Twice too is given an option to recover. All it takes is one bad day, and anyone can become a villain is not the Joker trying to point in the context of My Hero Academia, it’s a statement of empathy. That Twice, Shigaraki are not alone in their trauma. That they are both able to find each other, and start to see themselves as human when they realize they were people driven to be this way and not bad people who were always this way. In Horikoshi’s writing it becomes a much more humanizing statement. 

The sense of understanding that Joker is depserately trying to find in batman by proving a point, by forcing him to see the world this way, Twice and Shigaraki find in each other.

The Joker’s descent into madness is  sign that he is permanently broken, whereas when Twice imitates that same pose and expression it’s used in a moment of healing for him. It’s him realizing broken as he is, he’s still here, he survived his one bad day. 

As a final note, while portraying this humanizing message Horikoshi also manages to succesfully illsutrate the original point of the killing joke as well. It’s almost like having multiple examples of mental illness present in your stories, you can better explore the more negative reactions to mental ilness as well without coming off as ablist. 

The commentary that Joker is a part of the society he thinks himself better in, that he repeats what he’s trying to subvert, that he entirely fails at sattire is something that is repeated in Rikiya. 

Rikiya and Joker are both capable of observing the society around them. They know the society around them is wrong. RIkiya’s ideals as Re-Destro that people should not be judged by their quirks and that quirk society as a whole tends to restrict people entirely based on their quirks, something that they are born with and cannot control, and that society should be trying to adapt to people and change rather than just putting certain people down for the benefit of the people who can fit in better. 

However, both the joker and Rikiya are shown explicity not really to have attachment to the other people around them, or see them as people. They are jerks. Rikiya sees people as dispoable sacrifices to his great goal of reforming society. 

Rikiya however speaks of how evil society’s prejudgices is, and then he goes and repeats them. He looks down on the league of villains for being poor and disabled when he himself is a wealthy businessman. He suggests that Shigaraki is uneducated as an insult to put him in his place. 

His followers who espouse how people should not be judged by their meta abilities, judge the league as worthless and unworthy people because of their quirks. 

Destro says not to judge people by their quirks, and then goes and immediately insists that Shigaraki can only be a bad person who wants to destroy people, because he happened to be born that way. 

Re-Destro claims to be anti-establishment, but not only does Rikiya thrive in this exact kind of society (he’s a wealthy businessman he’s on the top of society, punching down at people who fell through cracks and were living as genuinely homeless going day to day for survival), but even if he were succesful at destroying the current society his ideals would just recreate the same unbalanced society just with him at the top. 

Rikiya would create a society where people are still discriminated on based by their quirks, he would create a society where people with stronger, flashier, quirks are able to have more freedom in life, and find more success and people with weaker quirks cannot amount to anything. How is that any different from the society he’s a part of? 

Rikiya is a part of the society he is trying to destroy. Yet, even he is still a victim in a way, he was raised in a cult to think that way and told that he had to believe these things because of who his father was, and he’s constantly at conflict with himself because of it. 

Rikiya, Shigaraki, and Twice in addition to other members of the League of Villains who fell through the cracks, all of these characters read as responses to different aspects of the jokers character and different ideas he presented in The Killing Joke. Rather than just a reference though, it is an intelligent response, that Horikoshi clearly made these ideas his own and shows off his priorities in wanting us as the audience to forget that these characters we call villains are human first. 

In the end the Killing Joke and My Villain Academia play with the same ideas to come to different conclusions. The Killing Joke ends with the idea that an insane person cannot save another insane person. Batman cannot save the joker. The joker is not someone who can be saved, and at the realization of that batman starts to strangle him and gives into his worst instincts to commit police brutality. 

My Hero Academia uses those same ideas to tell a story where insane people can save other insane people. Unlike Batman and the Joker, I genuinely believe that Horikoshi is writing towards a conclusion where Shigaraki is someone who can be saved by Deku, not someone he is meant to continually fight with until one of them dies or the other. 

In the end they are two different stories one of them illsutrates a failure of empathy and the other illustrates how empathy among insane people brought them together. 

[raymondshields]

1, 4, 5, 6, 11, 15, 21, 22, 23 for the writers ask?

1. Tell us about your current project(s)  – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?

Currently, I’m working on a fic titled A Monstrous Manifesto, which is a fic entirely inspired by Cat Valente’s poem of the same name. Every line is a chapter, every noun is a part of that chapter, and every single beast named corresponds to a Spectre, allowing me to dig directly into their heads and demonstrate their full psychology. 

Progress stopped unfortunately back in July on part four - a fiend, which I picked Deadly Beetle Stand for, because I just couldn’t get into his head. Kiril played soundboard for it and I’ve been humming and hawing over him trying to figure it out, but let’s be real it’s gonna come to me in a dream.

Because see here, most folks who’ve read my works, if told to point to my best, it’ll either be a) my breakthrough with Armour Adventures (which tbh if I redid I’d do better on), b) In Kismet Marcescence (which I need to sit down and plot out properly before I continue), or c) rather unexpectedly to me, Green Grows The Asphodel. Guess everyone likes that soft MiAlba where Alba gets his bastardization arc, but also I let him speedrun it in Broken Shine The Stars and people seem to like that one too, so.

The thing is with AMM is that this would be my greatest work. Like AA, it’s gen, but here’s the one advantage I’ve realized I actually have over pretty much everyone else in this fandom: I am myself a monster, fictionkind and all. I’m a Devil and a feral little beast, which means when you offer me Spectres - warriors of the dark and death who are all based around animal motifs - I take one look and go “oh! You’re like me!” and proceed to write them as actual monsters while having some unspoken and long-winded conversation about what it means to be human, what it means to be shunned, and what it means to belong among the broken.

It means that I write Spectres wildly different than anyone who isn’t Kiril (who is on the same wavelength as me and we argue back and forth about the inner details of everyone’s monstrosity), which means when I do it, nobody’s seen this shit before and apparently people seem to think it’s cool. So AMM is the very epitome of that style, of that psychological and philosophical discussion. I don’t really have a background of research in either of those things, so any similarities to works or theories already out there is entirely coincidence. Cat Valente’s poem was the first stepping stone I ever took to accepting myself for who - and what - I am. I owe as much of my identity and confidence to her as I do Zamorakian philosophy, which built my personality and is a major part of how I survived the middle school era of my life. The least I can do in return is offer the best of me out into the world.

4. Share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like)

“Somewhere deep below conscious thought, below his training and the life and this Lemurian body, buried under lifetimes of war, buried under the idea that a Spectre was a fighter, his blood remembered how to love the memory of the fallen.” - Beneath Blood Ties

BBT is one of my most unappreciated fics, which makes sense as it’s set almost two thousand years prior to Classic, starring a fourteen-year-old Lemurian Minos and the Saint who raised him, Aries Kirien, whose name is probably still spelled Kiriel at least once in the fic because no beta we die like Gold Saints.

The original inspiration comes from Seanan McGuire’s Once Broken Faith, and the line in question is Toby reading the Luidaeg’s blood memories after the latter told a young Karen that she couldn’t speak Faerie even in her dreams - she speaks it in her blood memories, and Toby notes that her blood remembers.

It stuck with me, though I’ve read OBF approximately a million times. It, along with A Killing Frost and An Artificial Night, are my three top Toby books. And it responded to me as someone who’s fictionkind: I couldn’t speak the language I spoke as a Devil in my dreams, or in the waking world, but I know some part of me remembers it. Would know how. The Chaorruption filters all of that into English because it thinks it’s helping, but if I were a magical creature right now, in this world, I’m pretty sure my blood would remember.

So I wrote about Minos, and the sorrow he carried. The premise of BBT is that a Pope realized some Spectres come back, went around before they became Spectres, and kidnapped the lot of them to train as Saints, leaving them all traumatized as fuck, unsure of who they were or who they followed, and messed up for lifetimes. I also wanted to show more that Spectres were more than what the Holy Wars made of them, and about digging through that exotrauma to remember that they could be kind.

Spectres, originally, would make sense as really just Hades’ servants and the ones who keep the Meikai running. Pretty sure that means they know every single death rite that’s existed in the past three millennia. Pretty sure they know how to be respectful of the dead. Pretty damn sure that below all that soldiering and war, they’re all really exhausted librarians who want to do their job and also dig graves.

But I like this sentence here best, because that’s pretty much the climax of the plot here: that there is, in fact, something underneath all his exotrauma, all the current trauma he’s been dealing with. That below all of that bitterness and war, he’s a better person than what Athena made of him.

Idk, I just think it’s neat and no I’m not projecting being ‘kin on him again. /j

5. What character that you’re writing do you most identify with?

Albafica, to nobody’s surprise. I mean, come on. A guy with a fuckton of traditionally-feminine beauty whose looks keep getting brought up, is very introverted, has seen some shit, just wants to kill people who hurt what he cares about while also not hurting the people he does care about, really wants you to keep your damn distance, is super touchstarved, and holding onto his humanity with his fingertips? Come on the only things he’s got that I don’t is an actual male reproductive system and naturally blue hair.

Once you realize that especially in TLC Athena’s actions are pretty damn horrific, especially to her Saints, Albafica has the perfect setup to become a Spectre. Seriously, if he’d been offered Luco’s deal but while holding a dying Lugonis, do you really think he wouldn’t have taken it? I explore that more in Broken Shine The Stars, but like. Albafica is the perfect fallen angel of a character. He has genuinely good intentions. He’s hurting so damn bad and only fucking once in his entire onscreen performance is that acknowledged (shoutout to Luco for that one), and if you take his sorrow and let him turn it into anger, he’s a glorious monster indeed. Albafica’s descend into monstrosity and Spectrehood is exactly what would happen if I got angry and also hadn’t been fucking nerfed physically.

I love him way too much.

6. What character do you have the most fun writing?

Surprisingly, Aiacos. Alba’s hard as fuck to write. Aiacos, though. You’ve heard me go off about Aiacos at length, but like. He’s the very embodiment of the worst person you can become while still loving, still surviving. Aiacos is the type of person we’re all capable of becoming, and we all should be terrified of becoming, because every single choice he’s ever made is completely understandable and that much more horrific for it.

It’s somewhat unsurprisingly easy to get into his head. He’s fun to write because he scares me. Because if I let him do all the dumb, selfish, sadistic-looking, survival-focused things, then I don’t have to worry about doing it myself. I let him look out for only himself when the pieces are down, so I can do better.

Also I haven’t seen anyone else write him that way (Kiril being the obvious exception here), so it’s double the fun because new territory.

11. What do you envy in other writers?

Hey. Hey you fuckers who can plot shit. Give me the number of the demon you sold your soul to. Let me PLOT SHIT.

15. Which is harder: titles or summaries (or tags)?

Summaries! Titles are easy, I steal them from songs and Toby books. They’re just fancy wordplay and I have literally a list on my fic spreadsheet of titles I want to use. Summaries, though, are very important. People don’t pick fics based on title and tags, they pick based on summary. They’re your hook into the work, so you’ve got to give the audience your premise short and sweet and actually sounding appealing.

Sometimes I can write them no problemo. Other times, they’re a fucking nightmare. I try to imply the tone of the ending in my summary, because I have absolutely been blindsided by the ending in a way I really didn’t like because I thought the summary was hiding the ending. (Example - there was this one fic that made it sound like my OTP was going enemies to lovers, and it wasn’t, it wasn’t, it needed the fucking dead dove do not eat tag, stopped just short of serious nonsexual noncon (which wasn’t tagged at all), and ended very unhappily and it messed me up for days, I did not like it.)

So for my summaries I set the scene, set the tone, and imply the tone of the ending so you have a vague idea of where it’s going. Easier said than done.

21. What other medium do you think your story would work well as? (film, webcomic, animated series?)

Anime, probably! Manga wouldn’t lend itself too well to my style, but I’d enjoy short anime episodes, I think. I honestly don’t know. Someone tell me what my stuff would work good as. I dunno.

22. Do you reread your old works? How do you feel about them?

For fic, all the time! I write what I want to read, and since six out of seven of the Dohko/Kagaho works on AO3 were my fault, I’d better get used to reading my own writing for pleasure. Fortunately, I like most of my writing recently, so that’s pretty all right!

Don’t ask about what I had up on ff.net. Don’t. It’s old and bad and I didn’t know how to write.

23. What’s the story idea you’ve had in your head for the longest?

Hmmm... I want to rephrase this better as ‘what fic exists only as a concept and has done so for the longest out of all the concepts of fics currently in my head’, and hmmmm. Honestly, it’s either Shion and Aiacos’ romance fic where they also get a daughter (which has a title actually, The Lost Sea Fantasia, but still hasn’t been written); or it’s Wyvern Rose and the Trials of Lightning, which is about 15th century Rhada’s two daughters, the elder of which is surprise-given his surplice and his job when he dies right before Hades does, and the younger of which is kidnapped by a spiteful goddess who doesn’t like the elder of the two.

ToL is a fic that I have somewhat plotted out, but really needs a lot of work. I’m not really sure how to go about writing it, because whenever I sit down to sketch it out, it never comes to me. It does, however, lend itself well as a bedtime / campfire story that Albafica tells Regulus while they’re out on a mission together, as part of Alba sneakily teaching Regu how to be a Spectre without anyone knowing. It’ll stay a concept for a long while until Rose crashes into my headspace and actually fucking tells me more about herself other than “oh yeah btw I’m fucking Julia” like thanks, already knew that from Julia herself, tell me more about you you awful little Judge of a dragon princess.

[ask game here!]

[hellomomo]

Quarantine Q&A

I was tagged by @moonlightusa. Thank you~

Are you staying home from work/school?

Yep, schools are closed here for the unseeable future. My spring semester is just about done though (my last exam is this Friday!) and summer classes have already been changed to distance education. So, I will be at home for who knows how long haha.

If you’re staying home, who’s with you?

I live with my parents, my older sister, and younger sister. Right now, only, my mother is leaving to go to work.

Are you a homebody? 

Yes? I usually was at home before, but not ALL the time. I miss being able to go out T_T

What movies have you watched recently?

So, my sisters and I can never decide on a movie to watch unless we have something in mind already. I haven’t watched a movie in a while actually. I really wanted to go see Birds of Prey though!

Shows?

Right now, I’m watching Fruits Basket Season 2, Brooklyn 99, Meow the Secret Boy, and Fugo Keiji Balance: Unlimited. I just finished watching Hi Bye Mama and Itaewon Class recently too! I’ll probably find something else to add to that list as well haha.

What event was cancelled that you were looking forward to?

Honestly, I didn’t big any big event or anything planned for the spring or summer. But I am pretty bummed that BTS’ tour got postponed, even though I was not personally attending.

What music are you listening to?

Lots of BTS (no surprise there at this point though huh?). I’ve been trying to find new artists too. Been adding a lot of mxmtoon and Rina Sawayama to my playlists though!

What are you reading?

I don’t read a lot of books haha. I am currently on hold of my library’s ebook copy of Pride and Prejudice though! Mostly just fanfiction lately (bless all you amazing writers!)

I have been rereading some of my favourite chapters of Mo Dao Zu Shi and Tian Guan Ci Fu, both of which I totally recommend if you want something longer and plot-heavy to read!

And I read a handful of webtoons and mangas if that counts. True Beauty, LUFF, My Deepest Secret, Devil #4, and I Love Yoo are some of my fave webtoons. And I’m also reading the weekly updates for My Hero Academia and the fan translations of MDZS and TGCF. Yeah, I’m more of a comic/webtoon person I think? I’ll probably read some other comics after exams are done. I’m super behind on Young Justice and Spider-Man :’)

What are you doing for self care?

I try and make myself one nice drink a day, like coffee or some fruity tea. Although the last couple weeks I’ve been eating a lot of sweet T_T

I’m gonna try and eat healthier and snack less though. I’ve also been slacking on skin/hair care lately ugh. I’m gonna let myself continue this slump until my last exam Friday and then it’s back to taking care of myself!

Anyone who wants to join, feel free to!

[lord-explosion-baku]

Howdy

I just wanted to say!!! Hello!

Today is my;;; writing birthday??? On July 31st of last year I wrote and posted my first piece ever which was a Dabi fic called You’re All Mine! It’s pretty wack to reread it now because I was just a little baby that didn’t know how to write, I still am and it doesn’t quite hold up BUT I think I’ve come a long way since then!! I’m still pretty thankful for the fic that got me started (who knew that the first fic that got me into writing would be one of the few I actually ended up finishing? Lolol) in writing and it got me to meet and interact with so many people!!! Like!!! Because of this blog I’ve actually made SO MANY FANTASTIC FRIENDS (the elderly community, if you will. I am an abuelito) and got to talk to people all around the world who are just as big of fans of an anime/manga as I am. BNHA was the first anime that I ever actually watched (if you don’t count DBZ, Pokemon, and Sailor Moon when I was like three years old. And Death Parade but I watched every episode in one night and I was like ‘k that was great but now it’s over so ?? 💃🏻’)

I also recently hit 4,000 followers and like 😱 that blows me away because wowow, I never thought I’d have a following with anything and, at least to me, 4,000 is a lot! to think that many of you somehow stumbled upon my blog and hit that button and made a choice to bear with me on my silly adventure to become a better writer is just like ! Really heart warming and I really wanted to thank you all for that!

I don’t really know what to do to celebrate because I’m a trash goblin that doesn’t know how to throw a bananza BUT if y’all have concepts you wanted to discuss with me or have me write a quick little snoot for like “what would mer!deku do if he found an injured reader out in the ocean” I’d be happy to talk about it! If you want, I’ll be answering your concepts all Saturday! Or if you just wanna come yell with me about BNHA, that’s fun too!

I’m currently eating a salad and watching Bungo Stray Dogs while trying to write but I’ll be poppin’ in here to check my inbox!

Anyways, I love you guys so much. Like I don’t deserve you but I am eteranally grateful that I have y’all’s crazy asses to throw my ideas at!!

SO

Thank you~ 💕

[ladykf-writes]

Fanfic Writer Appreciation (and a little self love)

Sooooo, as talked about I wanted to do a little promo. I may not always be my favorite writer, but I try to be one of my cheerleaders. And well, if you’re here you obviously have some interest in what I’m up to.

SO! Here’s a list of my currently-published WIPs and some info about them, in the order that I’ve updated them, most recent to oldest. 

Feel free to ask questions about any of them!

Dog Whistle (Ao3 || FFN) - started off as a prompt from @snackarey​ when I reblogged some Soulmate AUs. This one was a prompt for soulmates (Zack/Kunsel) who felt what each other felt - like pain. Needless to say, this went into a canon divergent AU where Kunsel felt some of what Zack was going through when Hojo got a hold of him after Nibelheim. And saved him, setting off an ever-increasing list of revolutionary consequences. It’s nearly 58K, and though I’m a little stuck I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes.

Dewprism: Journey to the [Relic] (Ao3 || FFN) - this actually has a lot more written than I’ve posted, I just got a little frustrated because well... the fandom is teeny tiny and there’s no real feedback. But! It’s an interesting piece. It’s a semi-novelization where I’m taking the old PS1 Classic from Squaresoft, Threads of Fate/Dewprism and merging the two storylines. Basically... you can’t play the game anymore unless you got it from the PSN for your PSP or... PS2, I think? Or emulate it, of course, you can do that. And I wanted to bring the experience to more people, because it’s got such a great story.

It’s Not a Game (Ao3 || FFN) - this is my Avengers/FF7 crossover, and funny story, it was actually born out of a comment back on my old Genesis RP blog about how Genesis would totally be Tony Stark’s favorite character if he played Crisis Core. It’s turned into a full blown fixit I have a type and I actually have like, 90% of the next chapter done, it just doesn’t feel quite right so I haven’t posted it. And am, of course, stuck. There’s a case of choice paralysis here; the premise is that, in the MCU, FF7 is a series like it is in our world, and Tony is a fan. So he goes to make a simulation to do a self-insert... only he somehow transports himself (and Bruce) to a dimension where it’s real. A “Stark-insert” someone called it; and it does use a lot of “Self-Insert” tropes, actually. There’s just so many ways it could go that I’m stuck on choosing exactly how to progress here.

Party of Five (Ao3 || FFN) - the MMO AU! This was actually originally a prompt @up-sideand-down​ got, that I got permission to take off with. It’s a modern AU AGSZC where they meet online playing this MMO I made up that’s based off of FF7 and modeled after a mashup of like, me studying WoW and my experiences playing SWTOR. I’ve actually got some ideas of where it’s going, I just got too caught up in technicalities and need to reroute it back to the relationships going on.

Welcome to FF7 (series link, Ao3) - this is me hashing out basically what I think went down pre-games. Most of it is headcanon, I cannot stress that enough. It’s based off of the little we know, of course, but there’s just so much we don’t that it’s mostly headcanon. Tons of OCs. It’s a whole series, and they overlap - different sections that follow different departments, mostly. The base story is Welcome to ShinRa (Ao3 || FFN) and that follows the man who will become President Shinra from back when they first discover mako energy. I’ve also got Welcome to the Science Department (Ao3 || FFN) which starts off with college students Gast and Grimoire and how they get drawn into the beginnings of what becomes ShinRa Electric.

And last but not least, honorable mention to Times of Change (Ao3) - this was actually a piece inspired by @deadcatwithaflamethrower‘s Re-Entry series. I desperately need to reread that before I can hope to continue this, but... one day. One day.... I don’t suggest reading it right now, my headcanons have changed and it needs an overhaul. But you’ll see eventually.

And now... the WIPs you haven’t seen. (Under a cut)

By fandom, just to keep things straight, but in no particular order otherwise.

Compilation of FF7

The Snowball Effect (Ao3 || FFN) ... sequel? continuation? - as one of the gift exchange presents I’ve just done this past month, it is definitely standalone as is, but if I ever figure out where I want to take it, I’ll continue that one. It was just far too much fun.

The Price of Freedom - the sequel to To Be Human, which... I’m looking forward to, but I really burnt myself out on TBH so it’s going to be longer than anticipated before I approach this one. TBH definitely stands on its own, but there were some loose ends left to tie up, so we’ll see how that goes. And when it goes, when I’m ready to approach that again. TBH needs some editing, too... lots of work there.

The Unnamed Pokemon/FF7 crossover that I’ve talked about for... a couple years now (yikes) but now actually have a plot for. It’s very interesting to me, putting Pokemon on Gaia, and seeing how that changes everything. Because like, they’d have presumably used Mew’s DNA since there’s no Jenova (I can’t see them using Deoxys, which would be the closer parallel) and since there’s no Chaos, Grimoire is still alive. Which means no extra Drama between Lucrecia and Vincent - and really, there shouldn’t be the stress between Vincent and Hojo over her being sick because Mew would theoretically be much more compatible with humans than Jenova was.

What I’m saying is Seph has three parents and at least one set of grandparents and a much more stable Sephiroth (and Genesis and Angeal, thanks to Lucrecia teaming up with Gillian) leads to some very interesting changes. Like deciding they don’t want to fight the Wutai war anymore. >_>

Hold My Flower - a timetravel fic featuring our one and only flowergirl, who has had enough of people messing up her planet and refuses to just... let it die. She is, unquestionably, a force of nature. No fragile flower to be found here, this is the gal you see in the OG who threatened a mob boss and meant it. Heaven help anyone who gets in her way. She’s going to save the world. Possibly in a Turk Suit, don’t look at me.

The Long Game - Reeve goes back in time, and holy crap this one is a monster I am truly intimidated by so it’s gonna take a while for me to get going on that. XD But basically, similar premise to the above - the world isn’t healing and someone has to do something, so Reeve is nominated due to his position in ShinRa and potential to... he’d say “influence” but let’s call a spade a spade - manipulate people and events to a more favorable outcome.

A third BIT fic is one that I started writing with my friend @askshivanulegacy back in... damn, somewhere between 2011-2013, before we switched to writing SWTOR fic together. It’s one where Zack is sent back in time, and the differences in him post-Hojo change things even before he can start deliberately changing anything. But I got permission to take and remake that, so I intend to, one day. It was Good Stuff. And you can never have too much timetravel.

Dragon Ball Z

So, this is an oooooold fandom of mine - the first fanfics I ever wrote (under a different name, no I’m not telling XD it was ten years ago) were for DBZ, and definitely the first ones I ever read, back in the days of dial up. And I read a couple interesting takes on Chichi/Vegeta fic... and I was talking with @vorpalgirl about it and said I’d love to try my hand at something with that one day. I think they have the potential to be a really great pair (don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the canon pairings but those two have a lot of potential) so... yeah someday I might dip my toes back into Z. It’s on the wishlist, as well as reviving and cleaning up an old unfinished work of mine. Someday~

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Seven Years Lost - this one I’ve been debating a long time, and even did a little on! It’s basically how I rationalize what happens when Link pulls the Master Sword out and - well, spoilers but it’s a really old game so - when he comes out as a teenager and is immediately able to handle a nearly-adult body. It involves a dreamscape scenario where he communicates with his past incarnations and learns from them, and from sharing dreams with Zelda due to their bond.

Sailor Moon (manga/Crystal based)

Second Chances - I read a lot of SM fanfic back in the day, and my favorite ones were... more real? Like, there were more consequences to these 14 year old kids out there fighting for their lives and sometimes losing them. I’d like to tell a story through Minako/Venus’ eyes primarily, covering what that’s like, and then I also just really want a happy ending for the senshi/shittenou? So... yay canon divergence, lol. You guys know the deal by now. XD

Star Wars: Legends Era

United We Stand - SWTOR fanfic, baby! Basically, I’m just dying to see the eight classes cross over each other, and I will bend canon to do it. For anyone that’s played the original class story lines, there is some cross over but believe me when I say there were huge opportunities that were let drop by nature of the game. Just with the two Jedi stories alone... but that’s #spoilers for a not-as-old game so I’ll leave that be and only elaborate if asked.

(And do feel free to ask about any of these! I’d love to hash them out more.)